The history of the controversy over the benefits of liberal arts education versus training for the job market, touching upon educational elitism, accountability, and the value of a college education, logic begs the argument that neither vocational nor liberal education should be seen as an isolated end,
but only as a part of the process of lifelong education.

05/03/2009: "Courts see a growing number of reverse discrimination cases"

The issue of reverse discrimination first reached the nation's highest court in the 1970s, when a student with good grades named Allan Bakke accused a University of California medical school of twice denying him admission because he was white.

Strict racial quotas were unconstitutional, the court said - affirmative action was not. But that ruling far from decided what many considered the big-picture issue: Does protecting minorities discriminate against the majority?

More than 30 years, and scores of lawsuits later, the question remains unanswered. Meanwhile, more Americans came to believe that affirmation action is no longer necessary, and that instead of leveling the playfield for minorities, it unfairly punishes whites.

[ No one can seriously doubt that "protecting minorities" discriminates "against the majority". The powers that be just want to perpetuate the charade for as long as they can get away with it. ]

"USGS study: Asian mercury pollution contaminates American seafood"

A new U.S Geological Survey study released today documents how mercury emissions from human sources across the world, and particularly from Asia, make their way into the North Pacific Ocean contaminating tuna and other seafood.

"This unprecedented USGS study is critically important to the health and safety of the American people and our wildlife because it helps us understand the relationship between atmospheric emissions of mercury and concentrations of mercury in marine fish", said Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar .

"Mercury researchers typically look skyward to find a mercury source from the atmosphere due to emissions from land-based combustion facilities", said USGS scientist and study coauthor David Krabbenhoft. "In this study, however, the pathway of the mercury was a little different. Instead, it appears the recent mercury enrichment of the sampled Pacific Ocean waters is caused by emissions originating from fallout near the Asian coast. The mercury-enriched waters then enter a long range eastward transport by large ocean circulation currents".

[ The Chinese must stop the mercury pollution. It's just possible that they might be able to understand this idea - after all didn't Lynn say their IQ was higher than that of Europeans? ]

Police believe a 72-year-old insurance claims adjuster arrested earlier this month is the most prolific serial killer in the city's history, having raped and strangled as many as 30 older women over two decades.

The victims in all 30 cases under review were older white women, mostly of lower incomes and often widows living alone, Cremins said. All had been sexually assaulted and most were strangled.

[ Although serial killers are seldom black, blacks still do this in numbers out of proportion to their presence in the population. And race was clearly a motive in his choice of target. ]

Egyptian leaders ordered the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of pigs today to help protect against swine flu, prompting angry protests from the poor Christian farmers who feed their animals with a country's food scraps. The decision was also criticised as a "real mistake" by a senior UN food expert.

The Arab world's most populous nation has been been badly hit by the H5N1 bird flu virus in recent years and the move to cull up to 400,000 pigs - seen by Muslims as unclean animals - was designed to calm fears of an impending pandemic

The World Health Organization has repeatedly said, however, that the newly mutated H1N1 virus is not found in pigs - although the animals can be the vessels for the "genetic reassignment" that produces new strains - and that pork meat is safe to eat.

[ This is really about persecuting the Christians to a large extent. But an interesting consideration is that perhaps the swine flue will prove to be most dangerous for cultures that traditionally avoid pigs, such as Muslims or Jews, while people from other cultures may have developed immunity. The world could benefit from a pandemic that would wipe out most of the population. The planet is over-crowded. ]